That was enlightening Torodd thankyou. I just got their new one recently, haven't listened yet though.]]>
Mon, 09 Aug 2010 14:27:16 +0000http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=70123&PID=3779104#3779104http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=70123&PID=3778795#3778795
Author: toroddfuglestegSubject: 70123Posted: August 09 2010 at 11:47

Orphaned Land from Israel needs little or no introduction. They are a true barrier breaking band which has changed many people's perception of progressive music, that be metal or progressive rock. In my view, they are one of the most important bands in today's rock/metal scene.

Orphaned Land released a new album earlier this year and I got in touch with them.

Matti Svatizky answered my questions.

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Wealready have an extensive Orphaned Land biography at your PA profilepage so I am not going to go over that again. But what is yourmusical background and which bands were youinfluenced by?

Ourmusical tastes are quite wide-scaled, different members of the bandhave different artists and styles that they are influenced by, and indifferent phases of life we used to listen to different things. Ourmusical tastes don’t end with metal, though metal is the base whichwe lean on when we’re making our music. I can speak for myself whenI say that I can listen to absolutely whatever sounds good. It couldbe a Dream Theatre album, a Pink Floyd album, Bach or Vivaldi, Trancemusic or even Madonna. If I find elements that I like, I don’t havelimitations, and the rest of the band is quite like me. We may differhere and there, but the concept is the same.

Idiscovered Orphaned Land through an album which radically expanded mymind and musical orientation. The name of this album is Sahara andthat's your debut album from 1994. Please give me your (long orbrief) thoughts and lowdowns on this album.

Saharais our debut album, but the second time we entered the studio. Thefirst was with the demo “The Beloved’s Cry”, which half of youcan find as part of Sahara. We were very young those days (15 to 18),and had a different direction than we have now. People oftenrecognize in Saharasome elements like passion for underground music and some innocencethey say we lack today. They might be right, there are some thingswhich you can’t re-live, but we are proud in where we are today andin the way we went through.

Youfollowed that album up with El Norra Alila in 1996. Please give meyour (long or brief) thoughts and lowdowns on this album.

ElNorra Alila was a direct follow-up to Sahara. It shares many of thesame elements, and the overall approach to music is the same. We keepmany respects to this album, since we think that the musical contentin it is very good. This isthe album which the lyrics really started to revolve around spiritualissues. This album is also the last one in Holy Records, and it alsorepresents in a lot of ways the ending of Orphaned Land as it was atits first phase.

BothSahara and El Norra Alila is difficult to find these days. Is thereany plans to re-release these two albums ?

Maybeyou can’t just get into stores and get them, but you can definitelyfind them for sale on our website and on our Facebook page. Manypeople ask us about re-recording those albums. This is an interestingidea, but right now we are focusing on releasing new materials.

Therewas a long silence after El Norra Alila and I thought that was theend of your band. But your compulsary military service is three yearsand I guessed that had something to do with this break. Please tellus more about this long break leading up to the release of Mabool.

Themilitary service might have had something to do with it indirectly.Kobi was the only one going through service, and he only did half theservice, the rest of us didn’t do it. But all our friends did, andthis made them cut their long hairs, mixing with other kinds ofpeople, and in many cases leaving the metal scene. We also explorednew musical territories, and there was some integrity issue withhaving a metalband. Besides, we also had to think about getting real jobs, a thingwhich distracted us from making music.

Maboolreally broke Orphaned Land and gave you recognition from a much wideraudience. Please give me your (long or brief) thoughts and lowdownson this album from 2004.

Maboolis an album which is in many casesreferred to as a more mature album than its formers. We brought intoit a much wider musical world than we brought into its formers.Mabool also has many more progressive elements than the formers. Theformer albums are also complex in many ways and there are not shallowmusically, but Mabool is more progressive in the classicalprogressive approach, meaning much more musicianship, the use ofvarious scales, non-conventional rhythms-weights and so on. It isalso the first album of ours which is a concept story album.

Along break again and I thought that's it for Orphaned Land again. Butthen news about a new album started to filter through and the endresult was this year's The Never Ending Way of OrwarriOR. Please giveme your (long or brief) thoughts and lowdowns on your new album.

Onthe first break you weren’t the only one who thought thatit was the end for Orphaned Land, I thought so too. But on the second6 years distance between albums that wasn’t the case. Through thoseyears we toured a lot, and worked all the time on new material. Wedidn’t work fast enough, and also filtered many of the materials.We had materials for 3 albums from which we made one. We also took along time for the recording themselves (about a year). We hope thatthis time it will take much less time to release the next album.

Sincewe are talking about your releases, let's also mention the TheBeloved's Cry demo from 1993 and the Ararat ep from 2005. What isyour feelings about these releases ?

TheBeloved’s Cry is a very important mark in our career. It was thepiece which brought us the contract with Holy Records. Werecorded it at some basement in our hometown, but there was muchspirit in it and a lot of ingenuity, and we also promoted it likecrazies. Holy Record seen the potential and gave us our first chance,and it wouldn’t have happened without this demo.

Yourmusic is in my ears a mix of doom metal, your local folk music andprogressive rock. But how would you describe your music ?

Manydescribe our music as you just did. Thedoom metal is more noticeable in our first two albums, since we wereinfluenced by the genre a lot back then, but we were also influencedby bands like At The Gates, and that kept us on the death side andprevented us from becoming a doom metal band. Of course that ourMiddle Eastern influences are always a big part of what we do. Wehave many progressive elements, but we don’t see ourselves as apure progressive band. Generally we don’t like to label our music,but I guess that “Middle Eastern Metal” won’t be far from thetrouth.

Howis the writing and creative processes in your band ?

Itis important for all the members in the band to be involved in thewriting process. We all write and give ideas to the structure of thesongs. We havelots of meetings in which we stitch together parts that we havecomposed at home. Kobi is in charge of the lyrical department. Heworks on the lyrics with our good friend, Alon Miasnikov, who helpshim write his ideas.

Ihave two questions on this political issue which should notovershadow your music in any form or shape. But I would probablyneglect my duties if I did not ask them. So here we go....

Yourmain presshoot for this album features clear references to Judaism,Christianity and Islam. It is perhaps a pretty controversial picturefor those who think those three religions cannot live in harmony witheach other and should fight each other to the bitter end. What isyour view on this whole situation ?

Oneof the things that we are proud of the most is that Orphaned Land hasmany Arab fans. It is weird, that in this world where our countriesour political enemies, there are people who find the strength andcourage to overcome these issues and say with all their hearts thatthey love a band. Thisaffection from Arab fans happened because the style that we areplaying. We were the first band to have an oriental theme through itsmusic, and Arab metal heads liked it. The picture reflects ourbeliefs that harmony between nations is at hand. People need toaccept each other. It is easier than we think. It is only a matter ofa decision.

Yourwebsite states that you also play gigs in the Arabic countries. Ithought Israeli citizens was not allowed to enter any or some ofthese countries. How do you sort out gigs here and have you everexperienced any form of boycott from groups or individuals in Europedue to your nationality and what your government is up to ?

Wenever actually played in anArab country. We played in Turkey, which is a Muslim country. It isimpossible now to play in some Arab countries, though we getthousands of requests to play in places like Beirut, Damascus, Amman,and we also have fans in Iran. We hope that someday those thingswould be able to come true.

Backto the music again. Some may not believe this, but there has alwaysbeen and still is a great music scene in Israel. Bands like Salem,Dalmerot's Kingdom, Melechesh, Trespass, Atmosphera, Tamouz and LordFlimnap is the ones I remember from the top of my head. How is reallythe Israeli scene these days and how easy/difficult is it to be amusician in Israel these days ?

TheIsraeli scene has always been a great one. It exists since the earlydays of metal in the 80’s and up until now. There are really goodbands here. Just 2 years ago “The Fading” won the MetalBattle competition of the Wacken Open Air festival, and there are alot of other good bands. It is very difficult to be a musician here,especially one which main crowd is abroad. Flights to Europe are veryexpensive, and our neighbour countries don’t welcome Israelis withopen arms. We hope that Orphaned Land can be some kind of a portal orjust a good example for bands here, that bands can reach outside andhave an international career.

Besidesof the new album what is your other plans for this and next year ?

Weare going to have 2 major tours in North America and Europe by theend of the year, and we are also planning on recording a live DVD.It’s not an easy task to squeeze it in only four months, but it ispossible and we are planning on doing it, so that our fans won’thave to wait too long for our next release.